The Strand Theater opened on March 2, 1922. The new theater (architect, H. Lansing Quick), at the request of the developer, former Mayor Michael J. Walsh, incorporated the auditorium of the old First Reformed Church (opened 1896) as well as the main room of a building in the back of the property that had been the church Sunday school and before that, the city’s first high school. The theater also managed to incorporate the oak ceiling of the church.